The Virtual Practices (VP) hosted legal software and outsourced cashiering service is helping Cook & Co Solicitors to remain at the cutting edge of change in the sector.

Set up in 2008 by Charles Cook and operations director Vicki White, the firm currently has 12 people and offices in Clifton in Bristol, and Portishead.

Cook & Co Solicitors works with entrepreneurs and small owner-managed businesses up to large plcs, advising on a full range of legal services including company commercial, employment law, litigation, debt recovery, commercial and residential property, and private client.

Vicki White says Virtual Practices will help the firm to continue to thrive after a period of rapid growth over the past year.

“We are a young, dynamic, entrepreneurial law firm and our culture is very important to us,” she says.

“That means adopting a very commercial fee structure and only recruiting senior lawyers, primarily from big city law firms, as well as being set up in such a way that our lawyers can work flexibly, wherever is most appropriate for them and for the client at that particular time.

“We doubled in size over the last 12 months, so we now have several more fee earners in the firm, and will continue to grow in a managed way.

“Virtual Practices complements all of this perfectly because it provides access to robust legal software which, crucially, gives everyone in the firm oversight over our files and more control over compliance issues.

“The changeover to VP was very smooth thanks to Natalie Jennings and the excellent support we received from her and her team, and the entire process was complete within two to three weeks.”

Natalie Jennings, who heads up Virtual Practices, which is a division of legal software supplier Solicitors Own Software, said: “Cook & Co Solicitors is an ambitious and forward-thinking law firm, and has recognised that Virtual Practices is an ideal partner for its business model and the way it will continue to evolve.”